What we wear communicates not just our personality, our tastes, and even our values. It can also communicate our experiences and our relationships. Few relationships are as profound and meaningful as loved ones that we have lost. You may, like many people, want to honour that relationship constantly by keeping reminders on your person. Here are some respectful ways to wear the memory of a loved one on your person, or to carry it with you.
This is a contributed post.
The traditional approach
One of the longest-standing traditions for those in mourning is to wear black. Most people will wear black or a similarly fitting colour for a funeral or memorial service, but wearing black, even just a single black garment, can help you feel like you are appropriately dressing for your own mourning period. Dressing in full black has fallen out of practice, somewhat, in recent decades, however.
Carry the memory of them with you
If the person you are trying to remember is someone who is especially and truly close to you, then you may want to keep the memory of them near you at all times. For that reason, the simple answer of photo necklaces, pendants, and similar jewellery can be the perfect thing. Some of these necklaces can even be designed to hold some of the cremation ashes of the person that you love.
A message in their name
Perhaps you may want to be a little more subtle and modest in how you remember the person that you love. To that end, you may want to use a piece of jewellery or an accessory that symbolizes that person without outright depicting them. To that end, options like engraving a ring with their initials or the date of their death can be a way to keep them with you that’s somewhat less overt.
Wear an accessory of theirs
If you have access to their clothes and the permission of anyone who might have a say over them, then you can choose a piece of clothing that may have belonged to that loved one. It can be a ring, a scarf, anything that’s relatively simple and easy to keep and will fit you. If you had a shared history with the item, such as having lent it to them or bought it to them, that can make it even more significant.
Keeping them on your person
While it might not be considered something that you would wear, tattoos are undeniably a fashion choice and can have just as much, if not more, meaning and intention attached to them due to their permanent nature. A lot of people have memorial tattoos, whether a dedication in name, a symbolic dedication that is related to that person or something that they loved, or even the face of a loved one. Just make sure that you are 100% behind any tattoo you get as changing or removing them can be very difficult.
There is no correct or incorrect way to remember a loved one. You have to do what feels right to you, and be respectful to others who have lost that person as well. The ideas above may be able to give you some idea of that.
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